South Platte River Eleven Mile Canyon April 30th 2025
General Information:
The Eleven Mile Canyon stretch of the South Platte River flows out of Eleven Mile Reservoir before flowing through the town of Lake George, Colorado. It’s a very picturesque canyon with a lot of fishing pressure in the gold medal stretch. There seems to be a countless number of trout here where the average size is 12-14” with trout into the mid 20s but rare.
Fishing Today:
Flows have been steadily rising from the beginning of the month but are still falling below historical averages by 10% of so depending on the day. The water at 10:30 was only 44 degrees and the fish were holding in water typical to those temperatures and are not pushing into the heavier water and won’t for some time. Water clarity was around 5’ or more, so be mindful of your approach. With the cooler water temperature and water clarity you want to ensure you are approaching from outside of their field of view especially considering more fish are holding in the tail outs, mid run, along the banks and inside corners so you won’t have riffles to hide your approach as much. This is because the larger food sources are not available in the drift at the moment and trout are not going to be fighting the current in the faster water without the return on calorie investment. Currently these trout will still be feeding largely on mayflies, midges and scuds when available as the water temps are in those insects’ active window.
I had equal success on both the gold medal water and the water below the gold medal section. You will find success with Mayfly patterns sizes 16-20 sticking to the darker colors, midges in a variety of colors sizes 18-24 and small scud patterns like a Sexy Walt’s Worm. I personally had a lot of success with perdigons on both a euro rig and dry dropper with a klinkhammer and parachute style dry fly. I also did very well on size 18 soft hackles as a tag fly especially when I saw trout rising or feeding mid-column.
Flows: 108 CFS Colorado Department of Natural Resources 11 Mile Canyon Water Gauge
Weather: 58 for the high and partly cloudy Lake George Weather
Hatches: BWO, Midges, and Scuds are available
Methods: Nymphing is your best bet but be ready to switch to a dry fly or dry dropper if the opportunity presents itself. A smaller Walt’s Worm paired with a smaller mayfly or midge pattern will bring fish to the net throughout the day. I had the most success long line euro nymphing using a Quill Perdigon and a Brown Duracell my tag nymph. Early afternoon I caught a number of trout on a dry dropper rig catching trout equally on the dry and the nymph below.
Flies: Mayflies size 16-20, Midges size 18-24, Scuds size 16-18
RS2 Gray Foam Wing RS2 - Chocolate Foam Wing RS2 - Black Brown Quill Perdigons Olive Quill Perdigon Barbless Duracell Olive Sexy Walt’s Worm Natural Sexy Walt’s Worm Bucky's Klinkhammer - Baetis Carlson's Purple Haze Mayfly Emerger Disco Midges Juan’s Money Midge Rainbow Warrior Jig Hot Butt Hare - Olive